Expert: Chris Wagoner - 4/29/2008

Question
QUESTION: My son has been separated from his wife for the past eighteen months and they are currently in court re: divorce/custody.  While he was on the stand the other day his wife's attorney asked him to name all the e-mail accounts he had, which he did.  The attorney then proceeded to actually name certain web sites and asked my son to explain what those sites were.  They were male porn sites and even though he had never joined any of the sites, just looked, the information was extremely embarrassing and possibly very damaging to his court case.

When his wife's attorney was asked by my son's attorney (off the record) where she got this information she replied "I have a friend who does this for me."  Is there any way my son can discover who actually accessed his e-mail accounts or would the fact that the attorney openly (in court) connected his e-mail accounts to knowing the sites he had visited be enough to bring charges for unauthorized access into his e-mail accounts and identify fraud?  

My son's soon-to-be ex-wife was aware of the User ID and password he used during their marriage and those are the same he has continued to use, although she was never authorized to use any of his e-mail accounts.  He feels she either accessed the accounts or passed the needed information on to her attorney.

ANSWER: Hi Rhea,

Accessing anyone elses e-mail account is illegal and should be reported to the police. Your son would have to be able to show who accessed the e-mail and the police can get that information from his e-mail service provider.

The records will sow the IP address of the computer that accessed the accounts and that would in turn identify the ISP. The cops then subpoena the records from the ISP for those IP addresses and they get the subscriber information. If it was anyone other than your son, its illegal. Not a difficult investigation and one that we do all the time.

I would have your son call the police and report that someone has been accessing his e-mail account illegally and he would like to press charges for it, let the cops take it from there.

Hope this helps..



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you so much for your quick and helpful reply yesterday.

I forgot to tell you that we live in Georgia.  You advised my son to go to the police but we live outside the city limits so should he contact the Sheriff's Office, the District Attorney or the Georgia Bureau of Investigation?

Also, are the crimes of (1) unauthorized access into an e-mail account, (2) identity fraud and (3)being a party to a crime (the attorney)considered misdomeanors or felonies?

Thanks again!

Answer
Hi again Rhea,

If you live outside the city you can report it to the sheriffs office, they in turn can report it to the GBI. Private citizens can not report directly to the GBI.

As for the level of what the crimes are, it depends on what the Sheriff's and State Prosecutor decide. Mostly I will guess Misd.

Look up GA Law 16-9-153.  E-mail virus distribution, denial of service attacks, and other conduct prohibited.

Hope this helps..

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